The Poorness

On Poverty

We live in a world where some people profit and others do not. If we want to actualize equality we must become comfortable mixing socialism with capitalism. We must develop a standard, not for poverty, but for minimum wealth. Even if a person is unemployed and gives nothing (physical) to society, we must hold the conviction that it is better that a person be given the benefit of a doubt and the freedom to live in comfort and with the freedom to choose a type of life than for that person to be allowed to die or slip into suffering and servitude involuntarily. Whether we like to admit or not, at some point in our lives we are all completely dependent on others.

Now, at this point many of you will say two things: “There is not enough for everyone to have a fair and ample share of the world’s wealth” and “People must earn whatever it is that they have in order to justify their wealth.” I say, if there is not enough to go around that is a technical problem that we must come together to solve. That is not justification for classicism. I also say that none of us deserve anything and all of us deserve something. I am not willing to play God with people’s lives. I will make for damn sure that treat everybody else on this earth exactly how I would hope they would treat me were our positions reversed.

Nobody deserves to be poor and as long as people are poor, nobody deserves to be rich. I hope that you will join me in creating a world without poverty. I hope that you will help me solve the technical and technological problems that make it difficult for people to live comfortably and free. I hope you will also help me to change the perception that a person’s value is in a person’s productivity. People intrinsic worth just as our national forests do even if those people or forests lack any obvious utility.

At long last some of you will say, but if we end poverty who will plow the fields and unclog the toilets. At this I say, wow. What the crap. People shouldn’t have to be that specialized. People shouldn’t have to be like ants. People should be free. If we can’t create tools to plow the fields for us or unclog the toilets for us then to darn bad. If nobody wants to do it we shouldn’t make people do it my making it too hard for them to do anything else. We should find ways to make it so that nobody has to do it or we should do it ourselves or people should do it because they genuinely want to. They should want to because whatever they get from it in wealth or satisfaction is in addition to the plenty that they already enjoy not because they simply want to make a living.

The Jovial

There is a great city far far away. The people there are very happy and very prosperous. The city is filled with large beautiful structures and parks. Elegant works of art and long dancing arcs look down upon the streets below. All of the carriages float above the ground as if by magic. There are fine restaurants and magnificent plays. Performers gather around the city market places. Little children eat ice cream scream with delight and the amorous play indoors under fine silks.

But there is a price. Deep underground, far from the sunlight and the sounds of sex and laughter, there is a child who wiggles and screams all through the day and all through the night. These are no fits of delight.

It is the great machine, that fine invention which so many years ago saved an entire civilization from certain doom. It is indeed the engine of utopia. It comes at a price, this is true, but a small price to pay to allow countless lives to thrive. What is the chronic torture of a single soul when weighed against the infinite prosperity in complete health and thorough satisfaction of entire people. When any people are faced with such a choice, the great machine is the sole solution, the universal panacea. 

Is it worth it, you ask? The suffering of one for the benefit of all. Is not the answer an obvious one?